For Local Authorities and Independent Fostering Agencies
Turn Community Support into Foster Carer Recruitment Momentum
FosterWave helps fostering providers build a measurable network of individuals, businesses and community groups who can extend the reach of fostering through the relationships and communities they already know.
A campaign on the surface. A recruitment engine underneath.
FosterWave works alongside your existing recruitment, marketing and assessment teams. It does not replace paid advertising or provider-led recruitment. It creates an additional route for reaching people who may never respond to a conventional fostering advert.
Paid Advertising Cannot Reach Everyone
Most fostering providers rely heavily on paid social media, search advertising and their own digital channels to generate enquiries.
Those routes remain important, but they repeatedly compete for similar audiences.
FosterWave creates an additional community-led route by enabling individuals, businesses and community groups to support fostering and share the campaign through trusted personal and professional networks.
Limited Reach
Provider campaigns cannot directly reach every workplace, community group, customer network or personal relationship.
Short Campaign Lifecycles
Advertising activity often ends when the campaign or budget ends. FosterWave is designed to build a network that can continue growing.
Unconverted Interest
People who are not ready to foster may still be willing to support, share and help the message reach someone else.
How the FosterWave Provider Model Works
- 1
Your Provider Campaign Page
Your organisation receives a branded FosterWave campaign page connected to the wider national campaign.
- 2
Local Community Engagement
You invite individuals, businesses and community groups in the areas you serve to support and share the campaign.
- 3
The Message Travels
Supporters receive practical sharing tools that help FosterWave move through trusted personal, community and professional networks.
- 4
Positive Fostering Interest
People who are ready to take the first step can register their interest through the FosterWave fostering journey.
- 5
Measurable Local Insight
Your authorised team can see agreed campaign activity, local engagement and enquiry information through the provider dashboard.
What Your Organisation Receives
- A dedicated FosterWave provider campaign page
- Connection to the national FosterWave campaign
- A provider administration dashboard
- Local campaign and supporter activity insights
- Approved campaign messages and sharing resources
- Business and community-group engagement opportunities
- Tracking of FosterWave-generated enquiries where technically available
- Support with launching and developing the local campaign
- A public presence in the FosterWave Provider Directory once approved and published
Some capabilities continue to be developed as the campaign grows. Where a feature is still in development, we will say so clearly during your demonstration.
Supporter Relationships and Data
People can support FosterWave without asking to become foster carers.
Their ordinary contact details are not transferred to a fostering provider simply because they support the campaign.
Providers receive campaign information and local insights in accordance with the supporter’s choices, the FosterWave Privacy Notice and the provider agreement.
Where a person separately registers their interest in becoming a foster carer and gives the required permission, their enquiry may be shared with an appropriate participating provider so that the fostering conversation can begin.
FosterWave does not sell supporter information.
Read the full FosterWave Privacy Notice.
Designed to Strengthen Your Existing Recruitment
- FosterWave does not replace your recruitment team.
- FosterWave does not carry out fostering assessments or approvals.
- FosterWave does not remove the need for effective provider marketing.
- FosterWave cannot compensate for a poor enquiry response or candidate journey.
It increases opportunity at the front of the recruitment journey. The provider remains responsible for converting that opportunity through timely, professional and supportive recruitment practice.
FosterWave Provides
- National campaign infrastructure
- Provider campaign-page technology
- Supporter registration and sharing tools
- Provider-directory presence
- Campaign data and reporting available through the platform
- Agreed campaign resources
- Support with campaign setup and launch
The Provider Provides
- An authorised organisational contact
- Accurate service and coverage information
- Approved branding and provider content
- Timely handling of prospective foster-carer enquiries
- Compliance with its own regulatory and data-protection responsibilities
- Local engagement with businesses, groups and supporters
- Accurate reporting of relevant enquiry outcomes where agreed
Become a Founding FosterWave Provider
FosterWave is currently establishing its founding provider network.
Founding providers will help shape how the campaign operates locally, demonstrate how community support can strengthen recruitment reach and contribute to the evidence base for the wider national campaign.
Provider Questions
Developed from Recruitment Expertise and Fostering Experience
FosterWave was created by Rolfe Pearce, an award-winning former foster carer and foster carer recruitment specialist with experience across Local Authorities and Independent Fostering Agencies.
About FosterWave